Amortentia
by OfPheonixandHolly
Summary: One double period of Potions and the interference of a couple of friends was really all they needed.


To the objective outsider, the content smile residing on a certain Lily Evans' mouth would have seemed to be an indication of a nice daydream. Perhaps she was reliving a particularly nice moment down by the lake in past days or pondering what delicious lunch the house elves were currently concocting in the kitchens. Because a daydream would be the only sane reason a seventeen-year-old girl would be smiling so widely in the middle of a Potions double period on a Monday morning, while the rest of her classmates scowled and yawned.

The problem with this observation, however, was that Lily Evans was most certainly not sane.

As any one of her classmates would have told such an outsider, Lily Evans was completely, utterly, barking mad. Sure, she was popular and pretty, funny and friendly and intelligent. But the reason any seventh year would have cited for her apparent insanity? Lily Evans enjoyed Potions class.

Enjoyed might even be an understatement. Where the average student despised the cold, dank dungeon classroom, tedious brewing, detailed notes, mountains of essays and homework, and superfluous Professor Slughorn, Lily flourished. She thrived in the humid fumes and disgusting ingredients each brew inevitably contained. She found genuine pleasure in brewing a potion to a perfection past the ability of even her professor, and was utterly bemused at why her fellow classmates lacked the same enthusiasm for the subject.

Which is why the redhead sat of the edge of her seat as Slughorn began his lecture of the topic of the day.

"Amortentia! The sweet imitation of the most delectable of human emotions- love! Its delightful mother-of-pearl sheen fails to hint at the almost sinister infatuation this potion has the ability of inducing…"

The whole class was silent, quills scratching on reams of parchment as notes and instructions were written on the board with a flick of the professor's wand. The corpulent man eventually wound down his enthusiastic speech so that his students could actually begin brewing, brimming with excitement as he revealed a rather significant surprise.

"And when you finish brewing, everyone, we will be examining the accuracy by which you brewed the Amortentia by sharing with the class what we have been able to discern in the scent."

With that, stools scraped across the floor as students lazily roused themselves in order to grab the ingredients from the store cupboard. Lily scrambled over to the cupboard and was back in her seat before the rest of her table had even left. Sirius and Marlene grinned at her enthusiasm.

"Eager, are we Evans?" smirked Sirius, knowing perfectly well how excited Lily was to start the potion. Marlene chuckled at her friend's infatuation with the subject and left with the dark-haired boy to retrieve their own ingredients.

By this time, the fourth member of their table had already returned to the table with his supplies. As James Potter and Lily prepared their cauldrons for the assignment, he spoke. "So I finished the round schedules and gave Dumbledore the point deduction reports last night-is there anything else I need to do before the next meeting?"

Lily glanced up with a smile and shook her head. The past year had been interesting, to say the least, as far as James Potter was concerned. She had been pleasantly surprised to see him appointed with herself as a Head of the school, and the easy friendship they had worked for sixth year flourished into one of the closest either had ever known. The two Heads chatted as they worked on the Amortentia.

Marlene and Sirius, now returned to the table, could only look up and grin knowingly. Two years earlier, Lily couldn't stand to be in the same room as James. A year ago, Lily and James would only be talking with each other if their other friends were also talking. Now, however, the two tablemates watched as Lily giggled over something James had just mentioned, both Heads completely oblivious to anything in the room other than their potions and each other.

"Reckon she knows it yet?" Marlene whispered to her fellow observer.

"That she's completely head over heels for him, you mean? That James is still as infatuated with her as he's always been? That the second the two of them get their heads out of their arses they'll date for the remainder of the year, get married straight out of school, and make several little Potter babies? Nah, but neither does he."

Marlene frowned. "With so much intelligence between the two of them, you'd think they would've realized by now that they're already practically joined at the hip. She talks about him as much as she talks about homework, and he hasn't so much as looked at another girl in months!"

Sirius chuckled at his friend's frustration. "I wouldn't worry about it too much, Marly. Remember what we're brewing here?"

"Of course, you dolt, we're making Amor- ohh." Understanding lit Marlene's face and was quickly replaced with an expression of glee.

"Exactly. Lily will finally realize how much she likes my idiot of a friend-"

"Both of them will have to announce that they smell the other one in their potion-"

"-And boom, a disgustingly cute relationship will be born."

With identical expressions of delight, the two conspirators turned to their oblivious tablemates. Marlene sighed at the sight of Lily fixing James' tie, while Sirius simply wrinkled his nose in frank distaste.

"That is, the disgustingly cute relationship they already subject our poor eyes to will simply be acknowledged by the two offenders."

And jumping at Slughorn's announcement that the discussion would resume in five minutes, Sirius and Marlene half-heartedly returned to working on the assignment.

"Remarkable work, class! Stupendous effort by most of you-" boomed Slughorn, with a disappointed glance at Sirius and Marlene's half-finished potions. "Now I would like you to congregate at your respective tables and discuss what you smell. If you smell something that does not attract you or cannot smell anything whatsoever, there lies a good indication that your potion will not be receiving full marks. Since we only have a few moments left, I will expect a short paragraph detailing what you smelled in your Amortentia and why you experienced these scents, if you did indeed complete the assignment."

Sirius and Marlene, barely containing smiles, simply turned to their table. Unable to complete the assignment with half-brewed potions, only Lily and James needed to discuss the scents. With a nod from the Head Boy, Lily tuned with a blush to her Amortentia. Brow furrowed, she attempted to discern what she smelled. "Well… there's definitely chocolate chip cookies- my mum's of course. And I think that's the smell of parchment and old books, no surprise there. But the last thing…"

Lily paused. A deeply confused expression marked her preoccupation with what she knew she smelled. Clearing her throat and looking anywhere but at James, she whispered, "Quidditch. The grass and robes and the leather of the Quaffle."

"Well done, everyone! Congratulations on those of you who have succeeded! Class dismissed, see you on Thursday," came the plump professor's deep voice as he announced the end of the double period. Lily, snatching her supplies from the table, promptly ran out of the room.

James turned to Sirius and Marlene, whose smug expressions only indicated their guilt. At James' frantic appearance, Sirius shook his head in amusement and shoved Lily's forgotten notes into his best mate's arms.

"Go get her, Prongs."

With that, James was smiling and running down the corridors towards the place where he knew she would've gone. Turning the corner and entering the library, he spotted a flash of red hair disappearing behind the Muggle fiction section. Slowing his run to a silent walk at Madam Pince's poisonous glare, he ducked around the shelf Lily had just run behind.

James' incredulous smile quickly faded when he saw Lily, head in her hands as she cried silently on the ground. She didn't appear to have noticed his appearance, but James was determined to find out what was going on.

"Lily…"

"Leave me alone."

"Lily, I need you to talk to me."

"I don't want to talk to you."

James chuckled softly at her petulant, tear-stained face as she glared up at him. "And why don't you want to talk to me, Flower?"

"Don't call me that!"

Lily rose; obviously ready to run for it again, when James spoke again. "Fine. Lily. Why did you run off from Potions like that?"

The redhead's mouth trembled before she gathered herself enough to respond. "You know why, James. Because I smelled _you _in that stupid Amortentia. And it was obvious! Bloody _Quidditch_, it couldn't have been simpler to figure out, since I can't even fly, let alone understand the blasted sport-"

At this, James attempted to interrupt, but Lily, on a roll, waved him off. "So yeah, I apparently like you. No great mystery, that was. For weeks I've fancied you, and I've kept my mouth shut, even though I know all of our friends see it. Because you didn't, and you wouldn't care anyways! I'm so selfish and stupid, because for five and a half years you asked me out, and now the second that ended, I realize I actually like you, you prat! So now thanks to that damn potion, you know. And now I have to stand here and finally hear how you don't have any interest in me, but you'd really like to stay friends. But that'll be awkward, because how could the friendship last, with you knowing how much I like you. So we'll drift apart, and graduate, and I'll be left thinking to myself, Damn, Lily, why didn't you say yes while you had the chance!"

And with that final exclamation, Lily turned on her heel and attempted to stalk off. Unfortunately for her dignified exit, James wasn't about to let her walk away. Grabbing her hand and spinning her around so that her back was against the bookcase, he began to speak.

"You are an idiot, Lily Evans."

Lily snarled and tried to push past him. He stopped her.

"_Listen _to me! You are an idiot! Completely, utterly bonkers is what you are if you think I'm just going to let you walk away after you say the words I've waited to hear you say for over six years."

Here Lily ceased struggling as astonishment kept her rooted in place. Satisfied that she would no longer run off, James stepped away and continued his speech.

"Over you? Over you, Lily Evans! The only reason I ever stopped asking you out was because you despised me! It hurts more than anything to have the girl you've loved for years look at you like scum all the time. So you know what I did last year, when I finally realized what a prat I'd been? I changed! For you, I stopped hexing for a laugh, I finally started studying, I told off Sirius for jinxing the first years. And apparently, although you never noticed, Dumbledore did!

"When I got my letter for Head Boy over the summer, I thought, 'This is it!' We were finally civil to each other, and you had to notice how I had changed if we were Heads together. And you did. But all that got us was a friendship, and that only suited me for a couple of weeks. Not that I dislike our friendship, because I really do treasure it, but I realized that friendship will never be enough for me with you, Lils. When I finished that Amortentia today, I realized how completely screwed I was. Because past everything else I could smell, like Quidditch and my mum's scones and coffee… the strongest thing I could smell in that potion… was _you._"

With that, James stopped his frantic pacing and glanced at Lily. Problem with that was that Lily was already slamming against him as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. Quickly gathering his wits about him, James smiled into the kiss and responded.

It was all wrong. Snogging the living daylights out of each other in the library on a Monday morning, with Lily's tears making everything salty and James clumsily attempting to maneuver Lily so that she was pressed up against the bookshelf. The fairytale romance was supposed to end in a sweet kiss under the stars, or in some other cliché.

But it was perfect, because Lily and James were as far from cliché as could be. Six years of emotion and arguments and screams and shouts and hexes and slaps and tears cold only be resolved like this. So when books falling drew the attention of Madam Pince's rage and she ran them out of the library screaming, all Lily and James could do was run around the corner and lean against each other, laughing manically.

They knew it was perfect, and everything was finally right. And they most certainly weren't the only ones.

Hidden in the alcove behind the statue of Gregory the Gregarious, Marlene and Sirius stifled their laughter and high-fived at the success that their failed potions had brought about.

* * *

><p><strong>Hello, my dear readers. I had to come back and make a few necessary edits, and while I was here I figured I'd drop you guys a thank you note. You guys have been amazing with making this one of your favorites and reviewing, so I wanted to let you know you should check my profile and take a poll on what story I should write next. I'm always open to suggestions :)<strong>


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